Community or capital?

Everyone positions themselves along the spectrum from knowledge creation (awareness, learning, community) to intellectual capital (knowledge assets, branding, knowledge exchanges). Through long exposure, I have come to recognize my passions and interests are clearly at the knowledge creation end. What I see happening at the other end is more about economics, PR, market caps and packaging than about the things that really matter to me, i.e. generating and understanding new insights, capturing experience and expertise, sharing and exploring. I do not wish to label or denegrate here, just my empathy is at the roots rather than in the leaves.

Intellectual capital is a HOT topic, it is the right emphasis to attract investment and to excite corporate sponsors, the right place to make money. I'm always left with this nagging question? Where does the knowledge really come from that we will package and sell as Intellectual Capital? Can you just go and buy IC or must it be nurtured, grown and supported?

A wellsprings person, my emphasis is on social capital, even the attempts to quantify "human capital" I find a little false, the key IMO is crafting supporting environments, building the right culture & attitudes, those are real difficult to see as 'capital' in any form.

The real challenges lie in getting groups to leverage their learning, to combine and synthesise their insights, experience and expertise. Once you have explicit knowledge or information it is a very different skill set that takes that product and positions it in the marketplace, negotiates value or legal protection.

My perception is that working with raw knowledge is the hard stuff, getting innovation cranked up, getting folks excited about learning, thinking and creating new stuff, is where the real gaps are. Once you have an intellectual product, you can apply proven methods to package, position, price and pitch.

What do you think?

Comments

[Justin]

I wanted to post simply because there aren't many posts here, and I think you deserve a big slap on the back for what you're doing. I work in a similar field, but I 'hijack' the principles to use them entirely in a commercial setting. So, reading your insights is a real refresher. I'll have to link to this soon, it's beginning to become a regular read (although I appreciate it's pretty new anyway!!)